


Geometry

by Lexigent



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 16:41:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14453448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/pseuds/Lexigent
Summary: Modern AU. Wherein Horatio navigates the vagaries of Hamlet's love life, Ophelia doesn't die, and Laertes is finally seen.





	Geometry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [danceswithgary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithgary/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Artwork for Small Fandom Bang - Hamlet (Shakespeare)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14447226) by [danceswithgary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithgary/pseuds/danceswithgary). 



"My dear Ophelia,  
I hope you can forgive your poor servant for his tardiness in writing this missive to you. Settling in at Wittenberg has been rather more work that I thought it would be, and so it I take up my figurative pen with much remorse.  
What no one tells you about starting university is how much boring admin you have to do before you get to, for want of a better phrase, do anything. I had to run around to five different offices to enroll in my various classes, look at a lot of tables at the Freshers' Fair to find the fencing team, and trot around a tour of campus with a hundred other people starting this term. I doubt any of us remembered anything much - that's why we have smartphones these days, after all.  
Nevertheless, I wish I could show it all to you! I There are a few interesting people here – I met two Danes called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern at fencing practice. Of course I will try my best to do what my father intended and speak the local language, but it's good to have some people with whom to relax and speak a more familiar idiom.  
The university has a few choirs and two amateur acting companies. I have half a mind to join one of the acting companies as well and so I have spoken to them and will be auditioning next week. Wish me the best of success."  
#  
Hamlet stopped hitting the keys of his laptop for a moment and looked across the room at the figure of Horatio, who was quietly making notes for an essay at the only other table in Hamlet's rooms. His eyes drifted to the left, towards the door to the bedroom, which he had left open when they had emerged earlier that morning. The sheets on the bed were still tangled from their exploits. Indeed, it was only down to Horatio that Hamlet was out of bed at all, and dressed, and writing. It was a Saturday and there were no lectures or classes, and Hamlet would have liked to spend it wrapped around Horatio. But Horatio, ever the diligent scholar, had thrown him off after the second round and insisted he needed to get some studying done.   
He turned back to his letter before Horatio could notice him looking. He would have to explain this situation to Ophelia at some point. But not today, and not by email.  
He took a sip from the coffee cup next to his laptop, set it back down, and continued the email to Ophelia.  
#  
Ophelia looked up from her phone and sighed deeply. Hamlet's last email – the first he'd sent since going to Wittenberg - had been long and convoluted, but he had sounded happy and that was the main thing. It was good to hear from him, but she wasn't sure whether it made her miss him less or more. She tried to picture him in another place, with another person, and somehow the thought was troubling. Even before he'd gone away, she'd sometimes tried to think about him outside of Elsinore Hall and had found herself unable to. It was alien to her, she supposed; the house had been their home since they'd been children and she'd only known him in this place, in these surroundings. He belonged here like the paintings on the walls and the gremlins on the East Wall and until very recently It had been inconceivable to her that Hamlet and Elsinore Hall could even be separated.  
But he had left it, and her, and the last four weeks had tested the strength of her heart to the utmost. There had always been something between them, since they had found comfort in one another after Ophelia's mother had died. The night before he'd left for Wittenberg, he had come to her bed for the first time. In the words of the cliché, "nothing had happened" in that they hadn't been sexually or even romantically intimate, but obviously something had happened. She remembered him lying next to her, remembered feeling his arms around her, holding her close. They had always been so comfortable around each other. It was similar to what she felt about her brother, but with a different focus.  
She remembered it all now, as she read his letter.  
She pulled up her countdown app and sighed again at the sight of the number of days until his return for vacation. Far too long without him, without the comforting presence of his friendship close to her, where she could feel it.   
She decided to clear her head before composing a reply. She rose from her desk and walked down the wide stone steps to the main hall and out into the gardens. She 

Hamlet sought out the shops in the town once the dust had settled on the first week's whirlwind of enrolments, orientation events, and accommodation administration. He naturally had a book list for his lectures and while the university library was reasonably well stocked, the tutors had recommended an amount of core texts for buying for each student. Besides, he would also look for something to send to Ophelia back home. She loved reading.   
He had been too busy to think about how much he missed her, and he was making new friends as he had intended, but now that things weren't quite as frantic, he found himself thinking about how much he missed the sound of her voice at night, the touch of her hand. He really should write to her. He'd had things to do, but she'd been home for weeks with no word of him.  
He'd never thought about what it would mean, to keep up a friendship over long distance. He remembered their last night together. It was bold of him to go to her, but he couldn't not have done it. He needed to know if she was happy for their friendship to have that physical component as well.  
Hamlet blinked to clear his mind of thoughts of Ophelia and directed his steps towards a small, but well-appointed bookshop just off the main drag.  
He instantly felt welcomed as he entered. Elsinore Hall had a library, but it was old-fashioned and could feel repressive. He liked the books in it well enough, but he could never be inside it for too long. By contrast, this shop, while well-stocked, felt airier, with more room for people as well as books. Hamlet could see some reading chairs at the end of the aisles.  
He was greeted by a young man, only slightly older than himself, who looked up from a writing pad when Hamlet entered. He had a buzz cut and was wearing a light blue collared shirt with a tie under a grey jumper.   
"My name is Horatio. How may I assist?"  
He had beautiful eyes: a deep green, like the needles of the fir trees outside Elsinore Hall. Hamlet blinked to shake the thought and produced his book list. It made him slightly self-conscious how crumpled it was, especially in the face of the bookseller's neatness. "The ones with a tick mark next to them."  
Horatio took the list, seemingly unfazed by its state of disarray, and glanced down it. "Come up last week, then?" he said as he turned around and headed down one of the aisles.  
"Yes," Hamlet replied as he followed.  
"You're in luck. The arts and humanities departments generally send their booklists to the shop ahead of time so we can order in. Or correct them if they put the wrong edition... but that's neither here nor there. Now." He stopped in front of one of the shelves that was labelled "Comparative Literature". Holding the book list in one hand, he started picking out books with the other. Hamlet watched his fingers close around their spines with a gentleness as if he were handling living creatures. Whatever else was going on with this young man, no one would ever be in doubt that he loved books. It was soothing to watch.  
"This should be all," Horatio said and Hamlet almost started. He blinked twice and hoped the bookseller hadn't noticed. "Thanks," he said and followed Horatio back to the till. He could feel his heart in his throat when he stepped back out into the street.  
The following week, Hamlet was standing outside the main courtyard at campus when he noticed the presence of Horatio. At first, he thought Horatio was there in his professional capacity as bookseller – some shops had stands at the university, after all – but he was carrying a backpack and wearing a jumper with the university logo on it. He was clearly on his way either to or from lectures.  
"Do you know that man?" Hamlet asked Osric, who was standing next to him. Osric was Wittenberg born and bred and knew everyone in town and at the university.  
"That's Horatio," Osric said lazily. "He's reading post-graduate biology. Helps out in one of the bookshops to support himself."  
"A scholarship student, then." "Yes."  
Hamlet mused on this. It seemed unfair that a young person with such gifts as this Horatio clearly had should have to work at a menial job to follow his passion while he, Hamlet, merely passed time here on a path that had already been decided for him.  
Someone called his name and the moment passed, but it was enough for Hamlet to be thoroughly intrigued by the man, this book-loving, studious creature who had never known the comforts so familiar to Hamlet and his friends. No one would care if they skived off class or took longer than three years to finish their degrees. They didn't even have to finish at all – their positions in life were already set, and they were merely here to become "well rounded young men". But for someone like Horatio, that degree was their passion and their hope for a better life.  
As he turned around to go back inside to his next lecture, he was already thinking of excuses to go to the bookshop again.   
#  
Horatio had an eye for Those Customers. The young fledglings, let go from the family nest for the first time, on the hunt for food for their various hungers. If their desire was knowledge, his books would usually satisfy that, and most customers tended to only come in once a semester, buy their course books, and then disappear.  
The ones who had other appetites, however - they tended to come in more frequently. Sometimes they wanted a chat, sometimes they wanted a friendly ear, and sometimes, they would tip very generously and their hands would brush against his at the end of a transaction.  
If he liked them, he would give them a cup of tea and see where that led. If he didn't like them, he always found ways to let them down gently. He did like most of them, though, for a cup of tea and one or two episodes of something more. Young gentlemen tired quickly, and he had no desires to attach himself to any person who would demand attention that could better be spent on his studies, so the arrangement suited all involved.  
The customer who was browsing the shelves now was here for the third time in the same weeks, an extreme rate even among those that Horatio had invited to the back room, and yet he had not shown many signs of interest in Horatio that way. Horatio also observed that he was dressed nicely – nicer than the first time he had come in. His long, dark blond hair was tied into a ponytail, and he was wearing a button-down shirt with a waistcoat. Horatio knew what his name was – Hamlet – and from his purchases, he could guess that he was doing something of an Arts and Humanities bent – but he couldn't quite figure him out yet. It had been long enough, however, that he thought it would be justifiable to test what if anything was going on.  
And so he walked up to Hamlet and offered assistance, and when he brushed against him accidentally-on-purpose Hamlet reacted, and did again when he caressed his hands for a moment longer than necessary as he handed over the books.  
Horatio smiled. Time to put the kettle on for this one.  
\---  
Hamlet was on his third attempt at writing a long email to Ophelia and trying hard to edit out the parts that she didn't need to know about. It was not going well. It felt bad to keep things from her. They had known everything about each other for as long as Hamlet could remember. She was the one who always listened – his parents usually didn't care about what was going on with him, or in his father's case were never around anyway.   
He stopped to consider.   
He could be with her in Elsinore and with Horatio in Wittenberg. Their friendship and whatever it was that he had with Horatio were different things, and they fed different parts of him.   
He would find a way of explaining it to her. Perhaps this thing with Horatio wasn't going to last anyway. He had never had the feelings he had for Horatio for anyone else, and he had no idea what to do with them.  
He closed the email tab and turned over to watch a video. He would worry about the email later.  
\---  
On a Saturday, Horatio closed the shop early and sat in the back room, usually reading or studying, and sometimes entertaining company, as it were.  
He was sitting across from Hamlet. They were drinking tea out of sturdy mugs with comic book characters printed on them.   
"Is this what you do, then?" said Hamlet. "You lure people in with beautiful books?"  
"Only those who want to be lured."  
They were dancing around the subject, the actual reason Hamlet was here, though they both well knew what it was. Horatio hated this part – making idle conversation, keeping things comfortable, until you got to the bit that mattered.  
"Thanks," Hamlet said eventually when his mug was empty.  
"I'll take that off your hands," Horatio said. He went over to Hamlet's chair and bent over him as he took the mug out of his hand.  
Hamlet reached up and touched Horatio's face.   
He thought of Ophelia, far away in Denmark. He thought of Laertes and the flicker of steel when they fought.  
He thought of the first kiss he had received, a lifetime ago, from Ophelia, when they'd been children, before they had figured out that just because they were a boy and a girl didn't mean they had to be romantically involved. He wondered whether Horatio's lips would be as soft as hers.  
Horatio seemed hesitant, almost frozen in his body. Hamlet stroked the back of his neck and looked into his eyes, tilted his face up to bring his lips closer to Horatio's.  
And Horatio came to him and kissed back.  
They decided to move things to the sofa after a short while. Horatio, as expected, found that Hamlet had a decided lack of experience in the area. It was a fumble, and at one point Horatio's knee hit Hamlet's side, at another Hamlet's elbow connected with Horatio's cheekbone in a way not conducive to their lovemaking.  
Hamlet giggled at this and kissed Horatio. There was electricity there between them, and somehow or other they managed an amount of pleasure between them.   
Horatio was no stranger to the passions of young gentlemen who liked their bit of rough and at this point in his life had few illusions left. He tended to take his pleasures as he found them and never got attached. He didn't expect Hamlet to return for seconds and was pleased when he did – and indeed, when he kept coming – and somewhere along the line there, the sex became less important and they spent more time drinking tea and talking books.  
Horatio started taking him home. There was something vulnerable about Hamlet seeing how the other half lived – not in a room in a shared house, thankfully, as Horatio had done while an undergrad, but in a small room by himself that had barely enough space for a bed, a bookshelf, and a desk.  
Sometimes Hamlet read to him, Horatio's head in his lap, his hand gently stroking the soft half-inch of hair on Horatio's head.  
Three months down the line, Hamlet texted him that he would be away for a few days because his father had died, and Horatio's heart twinged with concern and other caring emotions that he'd rather not have examined too closely.  
He sent a text back and prepared for the inevitable "it's not you, it's me" speech which would no doubt follow once Hamlet was back from burying his father. If indeed his father had died at all.  
Horatio was used to the fact that good things could never last for him, but he wasn't used to being this touched by a loss. He tried to think of his relations with the students as strictly transactional, but what he and Hamlet had had, had been more than that.  
He stretched and prepared for the day. Life would go on without Hamlet in it, and as ever, he'd be happy thinking about how beautiful and sweet it had been rather than mourn what he had lost.  
He reached for the slim volume of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations that he consulted for comfort like his more religious contemporaries consulted their Bibles. Together with a cup of coffee, this would set him up to face the day. Usually he would have been out of bed by 7.30, but life with Hamlet had made him relish the occasional lazy morning, and he supposed that what he had done for the prince, he might as well do for himself.  
\---  
Hamlet's hands were shaking when he texted Horatio. He had boarded the first train north after his mother's phone call and had barely had time to put his luggage in order, let alone his brain.   
His father. That strong, handsome, kind man who had read stories to him as a child. Who had worked and fought all the time, and to whom Hamlet had looked up as he saw him go from strength to strength.  
He'd known he would always fall short but his father's existence had inspired him to keep trying, to keep pushing himself. He had chosen a subject for his studies that would make him a more "well-rounded person" – he could have gone for business, or law, but he had always admired his father's way with words and his erudition.   
He felt unmoored; unsettled, alone in the world. True, he was going to his mother, but she had always been more of a background figure in his life; accepting and kind but not in the same league as his father.   
\---  
Laertes was the first person to greet Hamlet. Uncharacteristically for him, he'd waited up outside Elsinore Hall. He got up off the steps and walked across the gravel towards Hamlet.  
He had never been Hamlet's friend, but whatever animosity had been between them was forgotten once they their eyes met.   
A lifetime ago, when his and Ophelia's mother had died, there'd been an awful night of tears and blood; when Hamlet had bandaged Laertes' arm that had been raw with cuts and had comforted him late into the night. Laertes had pushed against their bond ever since, had perhaps not wanted to be so emotionally indebted to Hamlet, and Hamlet had let him be.  
But the memory of that night was what bound them together now, what made it possible for Laertes to be there. Hamlet leaned against Laertes, his face hot against the cool leather jacket Laertes was wearing. In an echo of that night years ago, Laertes held him up until he stopped shaking and no more tears would flow. He said nothing, offered neither comfort nor reproach; he just stood there and waited for Hamlet to be ready to move. Finally, Hamlet's body relaxed and he extricated himself slowly from Laertes' arms. He nodded by way of thanks – he wasn't sure if acknowledging it in words would break the fragile connection that had just manifested between them.  
"Where's your sister?" Hamlet asked.   
Laertes let his arms drop to his sides all the way, releasing Hamlet from the tight embrace he'd held him in. He looked at Hamlet with a hardness behind his eyes. He had never liked Hamlet's closeness with Ophelia, for reasons Hamlet had likewise never been able to work out.  
"Please," Hamlet said. His voice was still wet around the edges. He wiped his face on his sleeve and looked straight at Laertes. He felt weak. He had longed for Ophelia for weeks, but now that his father was dead, he needed her more than ever.  
"Her room," Laertes replied. Hamlet sighed deeply and placed his hands on Laertes' shoulders. "Thanks," he said. Laertes nodded and touched his arm briefly as he went past.  
Elsinore Hall seemed colder and emptier than it had ever been, even though the sun outside was streaming through the high windows. Hamlet made his way up the stone stairs, past tapestries and paintings of his ancestors, to Ophelia's room on the second floor. She opened the door before he could knock. He figured she must have heard his footsteps.  
"How awful," she said as she embraced him on her doorstep. She kissed his forehead, then let him step in.  
He took a seat on her bed and she sat down beside him. She put an arm around his shoulder and let him rest his head against her. They had found comfort in one another when Ophelia's mother had died; Hamlet holding the weight for her.   
"I'm not going to ask you how you are," she said. "Thanks," he replied wearily. His fingers were tracing the lines of her duvet cover – intricate floral patterns in subdued pastel colours.  
"I've got to see my mum," he said, "I've got no idea what to say to her."  
"Yeah," Ophelia said noncommittally.  
"What was it like with your father? When your mother died?"  
"You were there," she said with surprise in her voice. "He just shut himself away. Forgot about everything that wasn't his grief. He forgot about my brother and me for a while there, remember?"  
She sighed. "My brother's never been the same. I mean, I had you, but he didn't have anyone."  
"He had me. We sparred all the time," Hamlet said.   
"Exactly," Ophelia said. Hamlet felt something tickle in the back of his brain, gone before he could grasp it.  
"Anyway," Ophelia said, "your mum – she only has you now. It's a lot, and I'm sorry."  
He exhaled heavily and leaned on her shoulder. He didn't want to face his mother. He couldn't bear the thought of having to comfort her, not when his own grief was so raw.  
He left his mother's chambers shaking with anger and grief. His father was barely dead for two minutes, and his mother was announcing a remarriage already, and to Claudius of all people.  
He went to his own room and emailed Horatio, pleading him to come to the funeral. The house felt too small suddenly, with the walls closing in on him and the weight of history pressing down on him.  
He doubted there was much that could persuade Horatio to leave his books, or his studies, or both. Whatever they had, after all, was fragile and fresh, and he hadn't worked out entirely how it fit into what he felt for Ophelia, or how important he could possibly be to Horatio after a few short weeks.  
\---  
Horatio had tried as best he could to forget Hamlet's existence for two days when his phone buzzed with an email from Hamlet. The buzz earned him some death glares from fellow library users and he made a mental note to check his notifications settings more carefully in future.  
He got up and left the desk to read it in peace. He had a notion of what it would be – the usual "it's not you, it's me" with a side of self-loathing on part of the writer was the usual fare – but given his emotional state over the last few days, he suspected that he might react heavier than he'd bargained for. He closed the reading room door behind him and leaned against the banister in the library's stairwell to brace himself. 

Dear Horatio,  
I don't know who else to turn to.  
The house is too big and lonely now for my mother and I fear she will try to keep me here. She's engaged to my uncle now and nobody even asked me.   
Please come to the funeral, if you can at all. Don't worry about money for trains, I'll pay everything back.  
If you can't come please at least let me call you.  
Yours ever,  
Hamlet

Horatio's heart had turned to water by the time he'd finished reading – there was one thing he hadn't prepared for.   
He thought of himself as being a relative stranger to Hamlet. But clearly Hamlet felt differently already. Horatio cursed inwardly. Growing up rich more often than not meant growing up emotionally stunted, but Hamlet seemed to just have stored up all his emotions to inflict them on Horatio.  
He wasn't too sure how to respond, but in the end he decided that the one thing he needed was a bit more detail about what was actually going on. He descended the stairs and stepped in front of the library to call Hamlet.  
"Horatio. Thank God." There was so much emotion in Hamlet's voice that Horatio felt disoriented. He straightened his back.  
"I got your email."  
"I know you're really busy, I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm this person," Hamlet said.   
"It's fine. What's happening?"  
"Dad died. You know that, don't you..." His voice trailed off in distraction. "Mum's not even grieving, she's sleeping with my uncle. I have friends here, but I can't stay here. My uncle is very persuasive; they'll try and make me stay. Please come so I have something to tell them about why I can't."  
"Hamlet..." Horatio felt impossibly moved.  
"They think I can be happy here, but I can't."   
"I'm coming. I'll be on the next train up."  
"Thank you so much, just let me know how much it was and I'll send it on paypal," Hamlet babbled. His words came too fast. "I just, everyone here is – I feel like I'm going mad here."  
"It'll be okay," Horatio heard himself say. "I'll text when I'm on my way."  
"I love you," Hamlet said. Horatio hung up before he could say something he might regret later. His heart was racing. So much for never getting attached, then.  
\---  
Horatio threw a few clothes and books into a backpack, then caught a bus to the train station. After texting Hamlet and receiving money more or less immediately, he put his phone down and sagged into his seat. It was a long journey and he didn't want to waste time by fretting. He pulled out Marcus Aurelius and started reading. He knew Meditations by heart at this point but it always comforted him. He spent the rest of the journey reading one of the textbooks he had brought with him.  
Elsinore was, in one word, vast. A Gothic mansion, it stood in the midst of vast grounds, surrounded by meadows, orchards, trees. Horatio looked up at the building's richly decorated walls, the high windows, then down to the blades of reeds and rushes surrounding it. There were huge grounds, a river down one side of them, with trees overhanging it. Everything as far as the eye could see stretched out endlessly.  
He'd known that Hamlet came from privilege but nothing had quite prepared him for this. It was like stepping back in time. He knocked on the door which in fairness was a castle gate. He half expected a be-monocled servant to open it for him, such was the flavour of the building.  
Hamlet opened and let him in. Horatio had barely had time to greet Hamlet before he was drawn into a tight embrace so full of emotional hunger that he had to steady himself against the gate that had closed behind him.  
He stroked Hamlet's hair in a soothing fashion. Hamlet leaned against him and kissed him. Horatio kissed back and when they disengaged, he saw the figure of a young woman running up the stairs.  
"Who was that?" he asked. Hamlet fidgeted.  
"Ophelia," he said, as if that was an answer.  
There were things there that he wasn't saying. Horatio took him by the hand, feeling not entirely sure what he was letting himself in for, and let himself be led to Hamlet's bedroom.  
There were urgent emotional matters that needed taking care of, but when it was all finished, Horatio had a vague feeling of being used. He was too tired to examine it too closely though, and so fell asleep holding Hamlet in his arms and hoping that the next morning would come quickly.  
\---  
Hamlet stood at the gravesite as the coffin was lowered down. Horatio was on one side of him and Ophelia on the other. They were three small figures in black, almost indistinguishable in the drab surroundings. He quietly, almost involuntarily, reached for Horatio's hand and at the same moment, Ophelia reached for his. He squeezed both hands, suddenly overcome with gratitude.  
He closed his eyes and let the tears fall. When he opened them again, Laertes was glaring at him.  
Hamlet sighed. He would have to face all of it soon. There was no easy way to resolve this but he couldn't keep doing what he was. Horatio and Ophelia both deserved truth, but it might mean he would lose both. To one who had only just lost so much, the thought was not bearable. He thought about his father and what he might have said or advised, but he could not hear his voice or conjure sensible courses of action.  
\---  
"Come back to school with me," Horatio pleaded. He was sitting on Hamlet's bed.  
"My mother wants me to stay here," Hamlet sighed. "I can't."  
"You're your own person," Horatio said. Hamlet sighed again. "It's more complicated than that."  
"Because of Ophelia?"  
It had been the elephant in the room since Horatio had arrived, but he had prioritised getting Hamlet through the funeral and the ensuing family chaos. He still wasn't sure where exactly he stood with Hamlet and he wanted certainty one way or the other before he left.  
Hamlet swallowed and was silent for a long time. "I'm not proud of what I did," he said slowly.  
"What exactly would that be?"  
Horatio looked him hard in the eye and wouldn't let him escape. He needed him to say it.  
"I – got with you – and didn't tell her."  
"You didn't tell me about her either."  
"True." Hamlet bit his lip. "I thought I would have time to work it all out." He turned to Horatio.  
"I love her. I can't remember a point where I didn't. We've always been around each other, and then when her mum died... She's almost a part of me. I missed her like a limb when I left Elsinore. But... it's different with her. It's a different kind of love."  
"Riiiight. So what does that make me?" Horatio asked.   
Hamlet chuckled, as if Horatio had just told a peculiarly funny joke.  
"You really have to ask that?"  
"Yes, very much," said Horatio. He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice but he supposed some of it must have shown, for Hamlet touched his face with affection before he replied.  
"You're the best man I've ever met," Hamlet said simply, as if that was answer enough. Thankfully he spoke on before Horatio was forced to point out how little answer it actually was.  
"You're funny and you're kind and you love books and you're – you're – different.   
"You're not like anyone in this house, or anyone I hang out with at uni."  
"Because I'm working-class."  
"Because you're you, Horatio." Hamlet had started raising his voice.  
"You're – my dad would have liked you."  
Horatio hadn't spent the last few days at Elsinore without realising that this was possibly the deepest compliment Hamlet was capable of giving. He felt impossibly moved.  
"Hamlet..." he whispered.  
"Yes, I really mean that," Hamlet replied. "I don't know how else to explain it to you." His face crumpled in a tortured expression. "I love you. Both of you. I don't know how not to love both of you. I don't. I thought I could find a way somehow, but if it is there I can't see it. And I get if you don't want any part of this – I get it – I can only say sorry."  
Horatio exhaled and thought about what Marcus Aurelius would recommend in this situation. But there was little the old stoic would have been able to advise.  
"I'm not going to say I don't want any of this, but... it's a lot."  
"Yes," Hamlet agreed with a nod.  
"I'll get some air."  
"Yeah, you do that."  
\---  
Horatio wandered the grounds. To someone like him, who had rarely been out of cities, they seemed once more unfairly vast and open. Part of him wondered how you could ever feel boxed in in a place such as this – though, he supposed, if you didn't trouble yourself with going outside, that would do it. He was almost angry at Hamlet for not taking advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves.  
The sounds of the rushes under his feet and the wind in the trees could almost make you forget whatever was going on in your life, he thought. If you had vast grounds such as these, you would never feel like there was a problem that you couldn't solve by thinking about it for as long as it took you to reach the other side of your estate. And if you hadn't solved it in that time, you could walk back again, and so forth. You'd have space for your thoughts. Horatio had many of them, but they bounced off the walls of his flat and lay around cluttering up the atmosphere.  
He hadn't planned on this. Not on any of it. He wondered where it had gone wrong. When he had agreed to come up to Elsinore on the train? No, he decided – that one was decided even before Hamlet had left.  
Maybe the first time he'd decided to take Hamlet home. Or the first time he hadn't objected to him staying over and having breakfast the next morning.  
There had to have been a moment, he thought, when all this could have taken a different turn. Try as he might, though, he could not pin it down. He idly looked around across the grounds.  
He didn't walk into Ophelia so much as almost fall over her. He had been lost in thought, walking along the river that formed one border of the Elsinore estate, and tripped over the roots of a tree. As it turned out, Ophelia had chosen those to sit in and read. The tree was a weeping willow that overhung the river, its wide roots a comfortable seat for someone to sit in. The branches that soughed in the wind had hid her from view as he'd approached.   
She was wearing a red and white polka dot dress. She had a blue headscarf on her head. A few stray wisps of dark hair fell into her face.  
"Um," Horatio said after he'd caught himself. "I'm sorry." He cleared his throat. Ophelia was staring at him.  
"I guess I'm the last person you want to see," he mumbled and looked at his shoes. Marcus Aurelius hadn't had any suggestions for this one.  
She put her book down on its face and blinked up at him. "Actually, that's Hamlet," she said matter-of-factly. "So I'm guessing that makes two of us."  
In more ways than that, Horatio thought, and out loud he said, "Suppose so."  
He stood around awkwardly, suddenly feeling like he had too many limbs and not knowing what to do with them all. "Um, yeah, well, I'll, just, I'll leave you to it I guess," he stammered. Ophelia threw her head back and laughed.  
"Aren't we going to talk?" Horatio was taken aback by her sudden, forceful utterance.  
"About what?" He couldn't think about what to say.  
"Him. You. Me. Us. Take whatever pronoun you fancy, I'm sure there's lots to talk about."  
"I'm so sorry," Horatio said. "I don't know what else to say."  
He sat down beside her. "You're not the one who needs to apologise to me," she said.  
"Has he not spoken to you?"  
She shook her head. "Did you two..." She gestured back and forth with her finger.  
"Just now," he nodded. She took a deep breath and looked at him.  
"Okay. So. Do you love him?" Her face was so open that Horatio's heart twitched. There was no accusation here, just a genuine desire to know what on earth was going on.  
"Yes," he said. He held his head in his hands and ran his hands through his hair. "Goodness help me, I do. I never planned for that." He cleared his throat. "It's probably a superfluous question, but do you?"  
"Yes. Everyone does."  
"Your brother..." Horatio left the end of the sentence to Ophelia's imagination.  
"I have no idea. It all went to shit between us when Mum died, he's never been the same. We don't see each other much, I don't know what's going on with him. Or isn't. Whatever."  
Horatio nodded noncommittally.  
"When we were little, we had this whole fantasy that we'd get married and be the queen and king of all Denmark," she said. "We were always around each other, I couldn't ever know anyone the way I know him. But we never... I don't know. I don't want to say "went beyond that". It was never romantic, if that's what you're worried about."  
"What was it like when he left?" Horatio asked. He had an inkling of what would come next, and surely it came.  
"Like an amputation," she said.  
"I'd give him up for you," he said. He regretted it almost instantly.  
"But would he give you up for me?"  
"Fair point," he conceded. "He says he doesn't know how not to love us both."  
"Depending how you look at it, that's either cute or selfish."  
Horatio nodded. "Yeah. I came here to figure out if I'm okay with that."  
"Your boyfriend loving someone else as well?"  
"I guess." Had he been thinking of Hamlet as his boyfriend? Were they boyfriends? Things seemed uncertain.  
"Well, in that case I've got a head start on you," she said. "I've been thinking about nothing else since you first arrived."  
"Have you come to any conclusions?"  
She leaned back against the tree and kicked off her shoes.  
"If it was someone I liked. Then maybe." She played with her shoes. "Otherwise you'd have to schedule it, like class, to make sure you never run into each other, but then of course you would, because someone would double-book themselves by accident, and it would make everything really awkward, and..." She broke off when she noticed Horatio staring at her. "What?" She asked.  
"You have given this a lot of thought," he observed, trying to make it sound as neutral as he could.  
"Well, I said I had, didn't I."  
"Yeah."  
They were silent for a moment. Their eyes rested on the water.  
"So do you think..." Horatio didn't get to finish the question because Ophelia interrupted him.  
"I don't know you," she said. "So the answer is, I don't know." She inhaled. "But you must be really something, for him to want to have you here no matter what."  
"I guess so," Horatio said. He felt he couldn't really comment on his perceived value to another person.  
\---  
"Let me make my last night here special for you." Horatio leaned in and kissed Hamlet. Hamlet sagged against him, all the tension of the last few days suddenly releasing itself. He kissed back with abandon and they were soon under the covers of Hamlet's bed.  
They fit together well, Horatio thought, at least in this department. Hamlet let himself be held after it was all over, let Horatio stroke his hair and kiss his neck the way he loved to do. Horatio had always viewed sex as a transaction at worst, fleeting pleasure at best, but truly getting close to someone, caressing their skin, being gentle with them – those were the moments he treasured. He hadn't been emotionally intimate with anyone so his experience of that was limited, and he told himself to rein himself in but ended up going to town on Hamlet anyway, mostly because Hamlet didn't complain. He seemed to settle into his body the more Horatio touched him, seemed to get more comfortable the more Horatio caressed his skin in ways not aimed at sexual pleasure.  
Maybe that was why he had been with Ophelia first, Horatio thought; maybe it was this that she provided for him; something he needed and wanted that he hadn't been able to find anywhere else. How could he have, in the isolation of Elsinore?  
He felt kinder towards Hamlet, though he still didn't entirely understand him.   
Eventually, Hamlet fell asleep on Horatio's arm and Horatio stopped touching him lest he violate consent.  
There were feelings here, and not just Hamlet's. Horatio was in over his head, that was for sure. He tried to relax into it, and while that wasn't easy, it was easier than he thought it would be.  
\---

Three hours later, Horatio awoke with a start. He sensed something was wrong. It took him a moment to realise that the thing that was wrong was that the weight of Hamlet was no longer resting on his arm. Hamlet was sitting bolt upright in the bed, his face a mask of terror.  
"Hamlet?" Horatio said softly. There was no reaction. He touched Hamlet's arm gently. Hamlet turned to him with startling abruptness.   
"My father," he gasped. "I've just seen my father, Horatio."  
"Your father is dead," Horatio said. Sleep still had him half in his grasp.  
"He said Claudius and my mother killed him."  
"You've had a bad dream," Horatio said. He stroked the back of Hamlet's neck gently, trying to ease him back down into the bed. "Come, go back to sleep."  
Hamlet took a few ragged breaths. Horatio started kissing the nape of his neck and stroking his back soothingly. This had helped a few hours ago, surely it would help now. He felt Hamlet's tense muscles relax slowly. After what felt like an eternity, Hamlet lay back down next to him. Horatio continued kissing his neck and held him from behind.  
"I've got you," he whispered. Hamlet sighed and relaxed into his arms. Horatio stroked him gently, the way he knew Hamlet liked best, up and down his arms, and kissed the back of his head, burying his face in Hamlet's hair.  
"I don't know what I'd do without you," Hamlet replied.  
Sleep overcame them both again, and when they awoke next the day was dawning brightly. Horatio's heart felt heavy when he woke up. He didn't want to leave Hamlet alone in the state he was in. He wasn't an expert but that wasn't a normal reaction to a bad dream. There'd been something in Hamlet's demeanour that made Horatio think that, deep down, on some level, Hamlet believed that what the figure of his father had said to him was real.  
\---  
In the morning, Horatio packed quickly, then stood in the doorway of the room, door half open behind him, unsure whether he wanted to be in or out. He was in two minds about leaving. There was a part of him that wanted nothing more than to get back to routine, to books and studying and Wittenberg of all places, but there was another, unfortunately much larger, part of him that wanted to look out for Hamlet. He'd been sure he'd be able to leave him to his own devices after a couple of days, once things had settled down, but after what had happened the previous night, he was less certain.   
He hugged both Hamlet and Ophelia at the gates. There was yet another complication for him to work out, and he didn't reckon there were many books that would help with this one.  
Ophelia returned his hug briefly. Hamlet tried to hang on longer than was strictly necessary and Horatio noticed a wet spot on his shoulder as he walked away.  
Don't turn around, he told himself. Like Lot and his wife, this was how trouble started.  
He didn't look behind him the whole journey home.  
Wittenberg welcomed him with its comforting arms, its mediaeval air. He texted Hamlet that he had arrived, then went about his life. Or at least he tried to, as best he could. Unfortunately, Hamlet's texts grew steadily more erratic over the next week. Horatio tried to call him but he didn't pick up the phone.  
The next thing he knew, he got a call from an unknown number in the middle of a lecture and found himself outside the lecture theatre, talking to an aghast Ophelia.  
"You have to come," she kept saying. "Hamlet hit Claudius, pretty bad, and my dad tried to part them, and" -- her breath caught – "he hit me. He hit his mum, he hit everyone. Everyone's afraid of him and he won't calm down. We've hidden all the scissors in the house."  
"Don't worry," he said, "I'm coming." He thought he might as well live on trains by this point, and keep all his belongings in a backpack anyway.  
On the train down, he wondered when exactly he'd become an emergency doctor for his boyfriend's family - a boyfriend that he wasn't even sure of. Yet he felt such loyalty to him, and such care for Ophelia, that he couldn't not go.  
Ophelia was waiting for him by the gates. Her dark hair had been tied into a hasty ponytail and her blouse was askew on her shoulders. He embraced her, more out of habit than anything else, and didn't mean anything by it but found that the contact steadied him. He looked at her face. There were shadows under her eyes and she seemed to have aged two years since he had last seen her, the colour of her face more and more akin to the grey stones of the building behind them.  
"None of us can get any sense out of him," she said. "I wrote to you because you were the only one I could think of that knows him. But you know him – differently."  
She gazed at him meaningfully. "You know. You know the part of him that went away from us and I don't."  
"He never told me about you when we met. I would never..." His voice trailed off.  
"OK, right now? I don't care. Just bring him back to us. We can talk about everything else once that is done."  
Horatio looked at her and decided that she was one of the most marvellous creatures he had ever seen. His heart constricted as he followed her up the stairs. They stopped outside a heavy wooden door.  
"Gertrude locked him in his room for now," she explained. "It's --- yeah, I know. But he upset his mother and Claudius so much, and nobody knows what to do with him."  
Horatio swallowed. There was a knot in his stomach. He had no idea what to expect. Ophelia's emails had been convoluted and, he was sure, had not been able to convey the full extent of Hamlet's change.  
He crossed his arms as she turned the key in the lock and looked at him.   
"I'll do what I can," he said in response to the silent plea in her eyes, and stepped across the threshold.  
Hamlet was curled into a ball on his bed, in only his pajamas and socks. He didn't react when Horatio called his name. Horatio slowly approached him the way one would approach a frightened animal and sat down beside him.  
"Hamlet," he said again. "My lord. My prince."  
Hamlet was rocking back and forth, looking at the walls without any indication that he had heard Horatio's words. Horatio touched his arm. Hamlet turned to him and spoke. His eyes were glassy and he didn't look at Horatio but through him.  
"My father," he said, "my father. My mother and Claudius killed him."  
He jumped up too fast for Horatio to grab him and started pacing around the room.  
"He came to me and told me. I keep hearing his voice, Horatio, I hear his voice in my head."  
"My lord," Horatio said calmly.   
Hamlet talked too fast, like one who is feverish.  
"That's why they did it, Horatio! That's why they got married. Claudius killed my dad and now he's going to be the king and not me, and my mum helped him with all of it."  
"Hamlet," Horatio said, trying to make the flow of wild words stop.  
"Hamlet, close your eyes a moment."  
Hamlet shook his head but did as told. Horatio took a deep breath. He reached out and touched Hamlet's arm as a way to steady him. Hamlet's skin was hot, hotter than it should have been.  
"It is one possibility, yes. But that's a big accusation to level at someone on the basis of a bad dream."  
"It wasn't a bad dream, Horatio. It's real."  
"What proof do you have?" He was applying the lessons from his years of schooling now. Hamlet was frantic, he needed someone to be his voice of reason for him while his was hanging by a thread.  
Hamlet dropped his hands. "Well, logically, I don't have any."  
"You see," Horatio said with a budding feeling of relief. But Hamlet had more anger yet left in him.  
"But then why did she marry him? Why would you do that to your only child?"  
"Do what?"  
"Take away everything they were going to have. The future they were meant to have."  
Horatio sighed.  
"I'm not fortunate enough to have living parents," he said slowly. "But have you given her a chance to explain? Have you asked the questions of her that you now ask of me?"  
Hamlet stopped. There was no other word for it. He didn't even have to answer Horatio's question, but a soft "No" emerged from his throat.  
"Then maybe you should."  
Hamlet collapsed in on himself like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Horatio gently lifted him up. Hamlet clung to his frame.  
"Please, let's go to her."  
\---  
Gertrude was sitting at her make-up table when Hamlet and Horatio entered. Horatio nodded at her, then left Hamlet to her. He stood outside the door where he could listen in on their conversation.  
"Hamlet," she started, "tell me what's going on with you."  
"Why did you marry Claudius?" He asked. Horatio could hear that he was barely restraining himself from crying. "Why are you keeping the throne from me?"  
Gertrude took a deep breath. "So that's what this is about."  
"I always thought you didn't care," Hamlet said, "I always thought you wanted me to inherit no matter what. I always thought you loved me."  
"I do," Gertrude said. Her voice was close to breaking. "That's exactly why I did it."  
There was a long pause. Horatio heard sobbing. It was impossible to tell who it came from.  
"You're nineteen. You should do what other nineteen-year-olds do, and go to uni, and live your life, and have no cares about the ruling of a country."  
"So why didn't you just take the throne by yourself?"  
"Your father didn't. And I didn't want to either. No one person should rule a country by themselves." She touched his face before she spoke on. "And it looks like I've made the right call."  
She must have made some gesture towards the door then, because Hamlet replied, "He's not..." Gertrude interrupted him. "I don't care what you do and with who. But everyone deserves honesty."  
There was a long silence and then the door handle creaked.  
\---  
Hamlet's face was swollen from crying when he emerged. He didn't speak to Horatio, he just nodded, and together they walked off. Hamlet got to the bottom of the stairs and went outside straight away, down to the river. He needed fresh air, and something familiar and comforting to hold onto now his worldview had been turned upside down.  
"Do you want me to leave you alone?" Horatio asked when Hamlet opened the gate. Hamlet turned around with a puzzled expression on his face. "I don't know." He closed his eyes, then blinked a couple of times.  
"Come with me. Please."  
Horatio smiled weakly. He still felt shaken by everything that had transpired, but his heart was lighter now that he had more confidence that things could be resolved.  
He followed Hamlet down to the banks of a small river. They rested in the roots of a weeping willow that overhung the water. It was a cosy nook, shut off from the outside world by the branches of the willow that swayed softly in the wind.  
"I used to come here with Ophelia when we were little," Hamlet said. "And when we were... not so little."  
He reached for Horatio's hand. Horatio held it but didn't squeeze back when Hamlet did.  
"I do wish you'd told me about Ophelia," he began.  
"I love you both," Hamlet said. "I want to be with you both. Is that selfish?"  
"It is if you keep it a secret in your heart," Horatio said.  
"My heart kept it a secret from myself," Hamlet said. He felt ashamed of his conduct now, of brushing off and avoiding Ophelia when what he really wanted was to talk to her, to love her, to be with her.  
Horatio leaned across and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Then it's time to unburden it."  
\---  
Ophelia's room was a vision in pink and velvet, posters of rock stars and vintage inspirational feminist slogans. There was a whole history in looks between Hamlet and her when she let Hamlet and Horatio in. Horatio felt intimidated by the weight of it.  
"I guess what I want to say is I haven't been behaving in a manner becoming to a prince," Hamlet said.  
"Well, that's true, or you could just talk like a normal person and say you're sorry," Ophelia said. "You could have just told me."  
"But I didn't – I don't – want to break up with you."  
"You didn't have to," Ophelia said. "I said, you could have told me."  
Horatio and Hamlet looked at each other, scarcely able to believe what they were hearing.  
"Amazing," Horatio said under his breath.  
Ophelia hugged first Hamlet, then Horatio, then both of them.  
"Stupid boys," she muttered, and then, running her hands across both their scalps:  
"Now kiss."  
And so they did.  
The moment lasted only briefly, because when they pulled apart, all Hamlet could see was Laertes coming towards them. Instinctively he stepped in front of Ophelia to protect her, but this made him lose balance.  
Laertes' fist caught him on the chin, off his guard. "That's for my sister," Laertes shouted and kicked at him. He levelled a punch at Horatio, but Horatio sprang back in time to dodge it.  
"LAERTES!" Ophelia shouted. She extricated herself from behind Hamlet.  
"What's going on?"  
Laertes kicked in Hamlet and Horatio's direction. Hamlet was holding his eye, which was starting to swell up.  
Ophelia walked up to Hamlet and kissed him on the lips, and then hugged Horatio. She turned around to face her brother. Her face was a picture of anger.  
"You don't need to fight my battles for me. I'm well capable of doing this myself."  
Laertes' entire body tensed up. He balled his fists and for a minute seemed unsure what to do with his arms, then held his fists in front of his face as it started to grow red, anger turning to tears.  
And Hamlet finally realised where all that anger had come from. All those years of holding in feelings that were surely no less powerful than what he felt for Horatio and Ophelia.  
He took a careful step in Laertes' direction, then another one. Laertes didn't move.   
Hamlet advanced until he was close enough to touch Laertes' face. He gently touched Laertes' fists and cupped his hand around them, then gently moved them away from Laertes' face. Laertes let him.  
"I'm so sorry," Hamlet said. His fingers rested on Laertes' cheek. He stroked Laertes' face with his thumb. Laertes was biting his lip. Hamlet looked into his eyes and shook his head. It was too much.  
He leaned forward and let his lips touch Laertes'. Laertes responded with hesitation, but as Hamlet persisted, he grew more confident. His left hand fell on Hamlet's hip, his right sought purchase in his hair, and Hamlet let it happen.  
Neither of them knew how long it lasted. It carried the weight of their shared history, of years of resentment that Laertes had nourished in his soul, of years of oblivion for Hamlet, of the slow divide that had grown between them, all the feelings suppressed, until it had ended in a blow from Laertes' fist to Hamlet's brow.  
They finally broke it to come up for air. Both breathed heavily as if they'd spent a long time fighting. Hamlet leaned his forehead against Laertes'.  
"I'm sorry we forgot about you, your sister and I," he said. "I'm sorry I never saw you."  
"No one did," Laertes said. He pulled Hamlet closer and buried his face in his shoulder. The anger and hurt of a lifetime released itself in sighs and sobs.  
"Thank you," he said finally and released Hamlet. He looked at Ophelia and Horatio.  
"He's yours. Look after him, won't you."  
He turned around and went away. Hamlet looked at his back as he trudged back towards the house.   
His world had been shattered and built up again from ashes, and a lot of it was still in disarray.   
He turned towards Horatio and Ophelia. They looked as exhausted as he felt.  
"I could sleep for a week," he said.  
They ended up sleeping in his bed, the three of them together in a tangle.  
\---  
"Come in! The water's wonderful!" Ophelia threw herself backwards into the river while Horatio and Hamlet looked on from their secure hiding-place underneath the willow. She could outswim them both, as they well knew.  
"We'll be a while," Horatio shouted back and laughed.  
"Get a room," Ophelia replied with mock disgust and turned around to swim upstream. The boys watched her for a while.  
"She's really something," Hamlet said, his hand in Horatio's hair. "You both are."  
The summer break had come quicker than they'd anticipated. The previous year's darkness seemed a lifetime away now in the sunshine of early August.  
Hamlet kissed Horatio and was beginning to pull him closer when Ophelia landed in the middle between them, wet and wiggly liked a fish. She kissed first Horatio, then Hamlet, and snuggled comfortably on the towel between them.  
Hamlet leaned back and squeezed her hand. Just then, life seemed full of possibilities that stretched out before him. His mother would look after Denmark, and he would inherit when he was ready, and until then he – they – would be free to live the way they pleased.


End file.
